Rasha

When we breathe only dust

under a sky that is bleached bone white,

.

when the ground is cracked open

like the heel of an old woman’s foot,

.

when in our collective memory,

water from heaven has begun to smell

faintly of mythology,

.

like the stories old men weave

along familiar patterns late at night,

Tin Dune up on Mount Watke

mixing language up in her stone pots.

.

Then,

.

the soft clatter of wet footsteps on a tin roof at midnight

is a shocking spiritual omen,

a forgotten promise remembered.

.

It is something from another world

brushing up lightly against the silky veil between realities

and pausing briefly before passing on by.